He was only 20 or 21 in 1875, when that picture was taken.

Finally, my father (who died a year ago at 94) in his U.S. Army uniform, visiting home in Yonkers in 1942:

My great-great-grandfather, a horse trader in Pomerania (a common occupation for Jews in rural northern Germany) in 1859:

My great-grandfather in Pomerania, in 1875:

My mother’s father, age 20, on Rosh Hashanah in 1915, stationed with the German army at Cambrai. (In March 1916, as an Unteroffizier [corporal], he was wounded in the battle of Verdun, and later served in the Balkans. One of the many wounded Jewish veterans of the First War, he and my grandmother were finally able to…

This is how I tried to articulate the difference on another forum yesterday:

Shortly after I first transitioned at work (at a law firm), when I came to work one day wearing red nail polish on my fingers, an elderly secretary took me aside in the ladies’ room one day and very seriously warned me that red nail polish was a definite “no” because it looked “unprofessional.” She suggested a nice…

Not to mention that she was one of Roman Polanski’s defenders, and signed the petition for him.

A little boy posed with his hand on his hip would simply be assumed to be gay.

I’ve known more than one trans woman who were publicly disavowed by both their parents, but continued to see their mothers in secret, behind their fathers’ backs.

When they’re in character (that is, in drag), you call them she. It’s part of the whole gestalt.

Maybe they could have a minyan instead. There might be enough of them.

That’s a horrible generalization. I was a teenager, and acted like one, exactly once in my life.

I hope they learn soon enough that they haven’t “lost” their Dad, and that he isn’t going anywhere. I believe that reassuring one’s child (no matter how young or old they are) about that continuity is the most important thing you can do as a parent when you transition. This is something I wrote 11 years ago, after I…

Most trans people I know are willing to cut people some slack for using the wrong pronoun for a period of time, because they understand that it’s hard to get used to — harder, I think, than a new name. But when someone is still mis-gendering you 100% of the time, six years after your transition (as my father’s wife…

My mother, one of only three women in her graduating class at Columbia Law School (Class of 1948) was unable to get a job as a lawyer, and ended up teaching 6th grade for many years in the New York City public elementary schools. She had lots of anger, about that and other things (including losing most of her family…

Thank you. That’s exactly what I was thinking when I read this. The viciousness directed by many feminists (including almost every single well-known feminist) at trans women for the last 40 years — and at women of color who have dared to criticize “white feminism” — has been so over the top as to be completely…

Me too! I distinctly remember watching Pia Lindstrom on the local news and my mother explaining to me that she was Ingrid Bergman’s daughter, and what the story was with Ingrid.

A good story about a politician: back when I was about 8 years old in the mid-1960s and living in Manhattan, I was walking back from the supermarket with my mother, and she accidentally spilled a bag of groceries on the sidewalk. Who was nice enough to help her pick them up? Bobby Kennedy, who was standing about five…

Don’t forget that Janice Raymond thanked Adrienne Rich profusely for her assistance in the acknowledgment section of The Transsexual Empire. If it’s true that she agreed with Raymond, that’s even worse than what she did to you!